Sunday, October 30, 2011

Hey guys! Thanks for coming back for another entry into the weekly series that I do illustrating the best of the worst movies out there. This one is pretty obscure. It's a 1982 fantasy(?)/sci-fi(?)/post apocalyptic vampire/nazi/totally bugnuts crazy flick that you pretty much have to see to believe. Found by my friend Joseph and I on one of our many, many trips to the back of local DVD rental store, Video Hut, we were just expecting a typical 80's Conan rip off. Little did we expect the cornucopia of delights "She" had to offer. A robot Frankenstein with an exploding head, a cult leader with telekinetic powers, a fat hairy guy in a tutu, lepers, nazis, cowboys, knights, and quite possibly the strangest and most annoying character in film history: Xenon. Like the bastard child of Robin Williams and Groucho Marx, he literally stops the movie dead in it's tracks with horribly unfunny schtick, and is possibly the most memorable thing in "She". Watch the embedded clip and just see if you can tolerate him for more than 12 seconds. I bet you can't. Anyway, "She" is streaming right now on Netflix, so grab your swords and Sandahls (heheh), and give it a watch!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Welcome back to Classics of Crap, where I take a look at some of the most notorious cinematic stinkers of all time, and illustrate them. Last week, I examined the movie that killed the Batman franchise, (for a while, anyway). This week, I think it's only fair that I look at the movie that killed the Superman franchise- the odious Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

I was 9 when this movie came out, and was already a die hard Superman fan. This movie holds a special place in my heart as the first movie I can remember walking out of thinking it was a horrible, horrible disappointment. So now, nearly 25 years later, how does it old up? Not well, I'm afraid. The effects still look incredibly bad, even worse than the original Superman made 10 years earlier. The jokes aren't funny, but much unintentional humor comes from hammy performance by Mark Pillow as the evil Nuclear Man. I blame schlock-merchant producers Golan-Globus for slashing the budget so far as the director had to recycle shots of Superman flying over and over again. So, should you watch this? Sure, it's 90 minutes of goofy, awful fun. Best part? When Nuclear Man kidnaps Star 80 and takes her into outer space. Where she can breathe. WTF?

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Hey batfans! Welcome back to Classics of Crap. Today I'm shining the bat-signal on the Citizen Kane of bad superhero movies-Joel Shumacher's Batman & Robin. This movie is such a heaping pile of fail, it's tough to know where to even start. From the notorious Bat-nipples, to Mr. Freeze's endless ice related puns, this movie sucked the life out of the franchise so hard that it took years for it to recover. I think it's safe to say that the suits at WB deserve a lot of the blame for this one, making Batman so over the top and campy just to sell merchandise that it turned off just about anyone who saw it. Luckily, Batman is an extremely durable character, so this awful movie is just a speedbump in an otherwise great film series.

The zenith of Batman & Robin's total insanity is a point midway through the film where Batman pulls out his bat-credit card, and says, "I never leave the cave without it". Akiva Goldsman didn't win an Oscar for this screenplay, but a few years later, the Academy realized their mistake and gave it to him for a Beautiful Mind, as an apology.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Hey, bad movie fans! Welcome back to another exciting edition of Classics of Crap! Today's bad movie is the Russ Meyer Boob-sploitation masterpiece, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! It features a wildly colorful cast, anchored by a snarling lead performance by the terrifying tower of ta-ta's, Tura Satana. I just watched this movie for the first time this week, and it was incredibly entertaining. The acting was rotten across the board, and the 'driving' shots looked phony as hell, but it was always luridly fascinating. So should you watch this flick? Well, if you like busty babes, sexist hillbilly grandpas, and neurotic bodybuilders, you should come to my house for Thanksgiving some time. If you want to see sexy 60's girls on bikes screwing and killing their way across America, you should rent Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Welcome back to Classics of Crap, where every week I take a look at one famously bad movie and illustrate it. This week's film is Ghoulies, a 1985 cornball witchcraft-meets-Gremlins type of movie. As a kid, I was deathly afraid of the cover art on the VHS tape, which depicted a little green bald monster popping out of the toilet with the tagline, "They'll get you in the end". For years I was terrified that these creatures would come grab me while I was relieving myself. I was a more than a little disappointed that at no time in Ghoulies does anyone get attacked while on the john. And, to add insult to injury, that Ghoulie on the cover never even wore that outfit in the film!

To think I was even afraid of this movie! It's little more than a hodgepodge of different 80's horror conventions. It borrows the scary clown from Poltergeist, a tongue attack that would feel right at home in the Thing, and much more. The villain is laughable, and fatally for the film, the Ghoulies barely do anything. They could have left them out completely and the movie would have been more or less the same. But, the film has it's merits. It's often really funny as the cast of 40 year old "teenagers" attempt to conjure occult spirits, and it has some of the wildest overacting I've ever seen on film. It's streaming on Netflix as of this writing, so you can summon up Ghoulies right now!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Technically, the full title of this movie is called Birdemic: Shock and Terror. And boy, oh boy, they weren't kidding. It's only SHOCKING how TERRIBLE this movie is. If you haven't yet heard of this flick, it's a relatively new movie that has quickly been adopted as one of the best cult movies of the past decade. I think of all the movies I will profile on Classics of Crap, it's probably the most amateurish. Sound levels are all over the place, and there is no coherence to the editing or even the writing. BUT, as with most so-bad-they're-good movies, it's utterly hilarious. The signature scene, which I chose to illustrate, is a bit where the "heroes" fight off the "killer birds" with the only weapon they have around: a bunch of coat hangers. The killer birds, I'd just like to point out are just animated gifs, cloned again and again (a technique i used for my drawing, hehe). Also, the birds are apparently filled with explosives, since they inexplicably detonate upon impact. (huh?!) So anyway, I'd highly recommend Birdemic, as it features some of the best bird-on-human violence I've ever seen, as well as some of the most hypnotic hovering eagles ever shot on film. And the best part is, they're making part 2--in 3-D! Good lord! *Choke!*

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About Me

Jeff Victor studied art/design at the University of Kansas and has worked as an illustrator ever since. Some of his clients include Dreamworks Animation, Cartoon Network, Nick Jr. Animation, Warner Bros Animation, ABCMouse, BBC/Create Media, National Geographic Kids, East West Animation, Playstation, HBO, DMS Films/Academy Awards, IFC, Bicycle Casino, K&Company, Hallmark Cards, and Universal Studios: Hollywood.
All images on this site or on jeffvictor.blogspot.com are copyright Jeff Victor and may not be used without permission. All characters/properties are copyright by their respective owners.